Dear Doctors and Fellow Medical Practitioners,
As you may know by now, SMA released a newsletter last evening regarding Human and our stance to list all Doctors on our platform. This has caused some unhappiness amongst a select few who do not wish to be included in our directory.
We made the decision to include all Doctors after our consultation with MOH Compliance Officers back in 2018, as this offers an unbiased and comprehensive listing of all available options for our readers to make informed decisions for themselves without any commercial intent on our part. This decision is supported by our legal advisors.
Information updates on all Doctor profiles are automatically retrieved from the SMC Directory.
A handful of doctors have reached out to us over the years for their profiles to be delisted over concerns that they would like all bookings to be made with their clinics directly. These requests have always been promptly addressed by our team with the immediate removal of any photos and descriptions from their Doctor profiles, as well as the disabling of all booking functions through our website.
We are pending talks with SMA to address the concerns of Doctors who wish to be completely delisted on our website. I will keep everyone updated on whether we will get to keep our listings comprehensive. A press statement will also follow shortly.
I’m grateful for all the supportive messages we have been receiving from Partner and non-Partner Doctors.
Yours Sincerely,
The Human team
Update 1 - [6 Nov 2020] [11:40am]
The Human team previously mentioned that we were working closely with SMA to address the concerns of Doctors. We have amended the statement to we are pending talks with SMA as we felt that Krysania (SMA) was right in mentioning that the term working closely would imply collaboration, and do not wish to incorrectly represent the current status of pending talks.
Update 2 - [6 Nov 2020] [12:00pm]
We have sent a follow-up email requesting for mediation talks with SMA via Video conference call to come to a resolution over this matter. The purpose of the talks would be to clearly articulate the concerns that both SMA and Human has, as well as to come up with an agreeable timeline and next steps that would alleviate all concerns.
Update 3 - [6 Nov 2020] [7:00pm]
_1. Misinformation on how patient enquiries are managed on Human
Human’s concierge team based in both our Singapore and Jakarta office manages a large volume of inbound patient leads on a daily basis.
We are aware that misinformation has been circulating on WhatsApp that Human is actively diverting patient leads from non-partner doctor profiles to partner doctors.
This is factually untrue. Patients who request for a non-partner doctor are promptly assisted by our concierge team to complete the booking with the respective clinic. This service is completely free of charge.
It is neither practical nor possible for our concierge team to persuade a patient to book with a different doctor from his desired provider.
Our updated and complete doctor directory was soft-launched and in the span of 2 weeks, successfully booked more than 450 patient leads with 46 different non-partner doctors. Preliminary feedback on this service from both patients and doctors has been overwhelmingly positive, since patients do not have to manually call up a clinic by themselves, and doctors get access to our audience traffic and concierge service.
2. How doctor profile visibility is determined on Human’s Find A Doctor tool
The following factors determine the position of a doctor on the directory:
(a) Filter selection chosen by patient - eg. sort by insurance, specialty, location
(b) Completeness of doctor profile, i.e. profile picture, treatments available, etc
(c) Average doctor response rate to patient Q&As and patient enquiries
Both partner and non-partner doctors have an equal chance of appearing in high positions on the directory, based on the above factors.
3. How Human monetises
As a registered social enterprise, we need to generate revenue to pay our team, in order to achieve our mission.
To this end, our team collaborates with marketing partners such as Heroes of Digital to sell SEO-related consulting services to brands and doctors.
4. Contact Details
If you would like a first-hand experience of what it means like to be a doctor onboard our platform, we are more than happy to arrange for a virtual tour of our platform to give you clearer insight._
Update 4 - [7 Nov 2020] [7:00pm]
SMA - Human - Updates and Developments
In an email to Ms Krysania (Chief Administrator, SMA) on the 6th of November 2020, we mentioned that when we set up Human we consulted a team of lawyers who abide by Private Hospital and Medical Clinic (PHMC) Guidelines and local regulatory compliance laws. They advised us to automatically list all doctors on our platform using the SMC Directory to retain an unbiased and comprehensive listing for our readers.
In order to make expert health knowledge accessible to all, we need to have a balanced and fair view on how we manage doctors on our site. Human not only gives patients a voice to improve the patient journey process, but doctors the opportunity to share their knowledge and celebrate good work through great reviews.
We also mentioned how we would like to reach a fair and constructive agreement with SMA over their support for the rights of Doctors. While we continue to firmly believe in improving the Patient Healthcare process with knowledge about their doctors, we would also like to respect the wishes of the various bodies pending further discussions. As such, we will be removing all Doctors who have requested to be delisted while we arrive at an amicable resolution for both sides.
Update 5 - [10 Nov 2020] [3:30pm]
Human will be meeting with SMA and MOH Regulatory officers on the 13th of November 2020 (2-3pm). We will be updating this blog after the meeting with full meeting minutes as well as resolution details.
Update 6 - [13 Nov 2020] [2:10pm]
Human has requested for a closed doors non-prejudice meeting and will not be publishing meeting minutes.
Update 7 - [19 Nov 2020] [3:20pm]
At 14:10, we posted Update 7 erroneously as a draft update. We have temporarily taken it down as we work on a more comprehensive update.